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Marabá fire, August 2024 Curionópolis, Marabá

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2024, 16:51 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2024 in Marabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,662 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 801th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1095 with a page). Number 1012 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
3,662ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
30 Aug 2024 – 3 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2024
Heat detections
173
in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug3 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3031123

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high
35km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 166 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Curionópolis 19,950 inhabitants
    2,243 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.9 %
  2. Marabá 266,533 inhabitants where it started
    1,443 ha reached on 23 Aug
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
23 Aug 32.6 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
24 Aug 34.7 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Aug 35.0 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Aug 35.3 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Aug 34.7 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Aug 32.9 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
29 Aug 33.4 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug 33.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Aug 34.1 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Sept 35.2 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Sept 34.5 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Sept 34.2 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Sept after 35.9 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Sept after 35.2 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Sept after 34.7 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Sept after 36.0 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Sept after 33.5 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept after 33.3 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept after 34.3 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Sept after 35.2 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept after 35.0 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Sept after 34.7 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Sept after 35.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Sept after 35.1 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Sept after 35.4 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Sept after 35.3 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Sept after 34.7 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Sept after 33.8 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Sept after 34.7 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 23 Aug 2024
After · 10 Sept 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 1 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1066 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
28293031123456
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 173Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Marabá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2024 and 3 September 2024: 5 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,662 hectares (36.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Curionópolis (2,243 ha, 0.9 %); Marabá (1,443 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Brazil (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 193

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 193.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.